a. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally pertains to storage systems and more particularly to a combination of Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) data storage volumes.
b. Description of the Background
RAID storage is common high end data storage for corporate and personal computing. RAID storage permits various strategies to optimize a storage system for redundancy and/or speed, as well as minimizing trade offs between redundancy and speed. To further expand the abilities of RAID storage, a Storage Building Block (SBB) may be created as a combination of individual conventional RAID storage volumes. By combining the individual RAID volumes into a larger system, a SBB storage system may be created that is larger than individual RAID storage volumes alone.
RAID storage and SBB systems utilize many technical specifications to create standard products that are capable of interoperating with other devices. Communication standards are one of the primary areas of standardization for RAID storage and SBB storage systems. Common communication standards used for RAID storage and SBB systems include: Fibre Channel, Small Computer System Interface (SCSI), Serial Attached SCSI (SAS), Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA), and others. The Fibre Channel, SCSI, SAS, SATA, and many other technical specifications are kept by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). ANSI is located at 11 West 42nd Street, 13th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10036, telephone number 212-642-4900, and web site www.ansi.org.